Green DMV to Celebrate Award, Honor Van Jones at Fundraiser

It all started with a discussion about a New York Times article that detailed environmentalist Van Jones‘ views on tackling pollution and poverty through green jobs.

When Rhon Hayes and Philip O’Neal began to talk about the profile and “what Van was attempting to do, it just struck us as probably the most brilliant idea we had heard in a while,” Hayes recalled. “So we started thinking long-term: if Van is successful, how will people in these low-income communities actually know about these opportunities?”

That was in late 2007.

Nearly three years later, Green DMV — their non-profit organization that promotes energy and green jobs as a pathway out of poverty in the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia area — is thriving.

“I’m happy to say now that folks call us with almost anything green,” Hayes said with a laugh. “Our approach worked.”

When Green DMV goes into some communities to promote green initiatives, tell business owners how they can reduce their carbon footprint or sell the idea of green jobs, they know they have a bit of a challenge.

“It’s been our goal from the beginning to educate in a way that makes sense to people and meet them where they are,” Hayes said. “Because (for) a lot of people in the communities that we focus on, the only exposure they have to what it means to be green is when they hear (President Barack Obama) talk about these green jobs.”

But they don’t know where the jobs are located or how they can get one or even what someone with a green job does, Hayes explained. Green DMV fills in that gap, even with audiences that may be skeptical.

Green DMV had to change the way they communicated, exchanging some of the longer, more technical information for the bottom line. So now, when they visit businesses, rather than talking about “reducing the carbon footprint, we talk about how it saves you money,” Hayes explained. “Once we did that, (owners) were a lot more open to what we had to say.”

Green DMV has a longterm plan of expanding to other cities. Hayes said he looks forward to what the organization can accomplish in the future.

“The great thing about what we do is that the benefits are unimaginable when you think about how similar a lot of inner-cities are,” Hayes said. “So we think the programs that we have created would benefit any metro area.”

A Chicago native, Bridgette has been a journalist since she first wrote for her seventh grade newsletter. Today, that passion is just as strong. She has written for several newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Defender, the Marshall News-Messenger (Texas) and the Springfield News-Sun (Ohio).

Politic365 is an opinion and policy blog focused on communities of color. We create a positive media outlet for the empowerment and enrichment of our elected officials and community leaders, provide a venue for the exploration of issues important to our communities and address political and policy about the economy, healthcare, technology, energy and a variety of social and cultural issues, all from the diverse perspective of people of color.